In Russia, Blooms Flourish on International Women’s Day

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A stall of flower arrangements at the Rizhsky market in Moscow on Wednesday, International Women’s Day, when Russians give bouquets to all the women in their lives.CreditCreditJames Hill for The New York Times

MOSCOW — A multicolored chaos reigned across Russia on Wednesday, as crowds jostled for bouquets of all sizes and hues for a holiday that celebrates women.

Russians love International Women’s Day, a Communist-era holdover sometimes called the Russian St. Valentine’s Day. And flower sellers love the holiday, with March 8 ranking as the largest single sales day in Russia for mom-and-pop shops, wholesale markets and Dutch farmers.

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CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

On March 8, the need for bouquets quickly adds up.

Although Valentine’s Day is also celebrated here, it is viewed as a foreign import and too cloyingly romantic to encompass the full range of ways that women should be appreciated. On International Women’s Day, men and women give flowers to mothers, sisters, daughters, co-workers, along with wives and girlfriends.

“St. Valentine’s Day is for lovers, and Women’s Day is for women,” said Maria Mamedova, a saleswoman at a flower stall outside the Tsvetnoy Boulevard subway station in Moscow.

As in the United States, the Russian floral market is buoyed by holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. People in the Netherlands and some other European countries tend to give flowers year round, creating steadier demand.

International Women’s Day is especially important for the Dutch flower industry. Dutch flower farmers grow and export tulips and lilies. The Netherlands is also the first point of arrival for many roses from Africa and South America, which are traded in Dutch flower auctions before being re-exported elsewhere, including to Russia.

The Netherlands exported 120 million euros’ worth of flowers to Russia last year, according to Matthieu ter Haar, a spokesman for Royal FloraHolland, a flower industry trade association. The March 8 holiday typically accounts for 10 percent of the annual total.

“It’s always a beautiful day, and flowers always bring a lot of happiness to people,” Mr. ter Haar said. “On International Women’s Day in Russia you see lines of people at the shops. It’s a very positive thing.”

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CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

Like so much in Russia, the flower business has even been a source of geopolitical tension.

When investigators from the Netherlands looked into the downing of a civilian plane over Ukraine in 2014 that killed nearly 200 Dutch people, Russian authorities for a time banned — and in some cases burned — Dutch flowers. The authorities denied the moves were related, saying they were prompted by a pest threat. The tension subsided and the trade is again open.

Nicolas Megrelis, a French owner of 13 flower shops across Moscow, sells exclusively imported roses for $2.40 to $3.40 per stem. Like all in the flower business in Russia, his business pivots around Women’s Day when the shops typically sell 150,000 stems, or more than $400,000 worth of roses, as much as a month of sales.

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CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

The flower business in Russia, as elsewhere, is composed mostly of small, individual sellers rather than chains of flower shops, making wholesale markets like Rizhsky in Moscow important links in the floral supply chain.

About 70 percent of the roses, chrysanthemums, carnations and ornamental greenery sold in the Rizhsky market are imported, with most coming from Holland, Ecuador, Colombia and Israel, Taras Belozyorov, the spokesman for the Moscow city department of trade and services, said in a statement.

“Growing flowers in the Moscow region is accompanied by certain difficulties,” he said, notably the cost of heating and illuminating greenhouses during the bitter Russian winter.

But Russians still love flowers. The market is a tableau of pink, yellow and orange pastels of tulips, gigantic bundles of red roses. The gentle beauty contrasts with the sharp-elbowed bustle of buyers as lovers, fathers, sons and bosses set about doing something kind for the women in their lives.

Out on the frosty streets of Moscow on Wednesday, Dmitri Makhno, a restaurant owner, was buying white tulips for his female employees. “I love my employees,” he said. “I give flowers to every woman today. Today is their day.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: No Love for Valentine’s: In Russia, Florists Bank on a Day for Women. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe